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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27539350">Full of The Empty</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/feersomequeersome/pseuds/feersomequeersome'>feersomequeersome</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Happy Ending, M/M, Mentioned Crowley, No Smut, Not a lot of dialogue, One Shot, Pining, Post s15e18, Rescue, Slash, The Empty (Supernatural), a lot of silence, but its ambiguous, dean saves cas, fix it? not really, folks owe sam money, i almost rated it mature but its kinda not, i hope the finale is good, idk man, if its not, im just not good at writing it, im not good at dialogue, imma write an angry email, kind of, kiss, mentioned balthazar - Freeform, mentioned meg - Freeform, mentioned uriel - Freeform, prob too many tags sorry lol, speculation for the finale</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:41:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,673</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27539350</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/feersomequeersome/pseuds/feersomequeersome</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean searches for Cas(s) in the Empty.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Full of The Empty</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is my first ever fic I've posted on here I hope you lot like it :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It took months, and Dean was sick to death of watching the moon change its face. They were finally ready. Or he was, at least. He left a note behind on the kitchen bench to tell Sam. He had to do this alone. The spell bubbled, and so did the portal that it summoned. Black, and thick as tar. Dean stepped in.</p>
<p>Empty. It almost didn’t fully describe what it was like. The word seemed too small, as insignificant as Dean felt in a place that spread further than he could ever comprehend. Even Seraphina and Adam had under-exaggerated. Vast seemed wrong too. Vast and empty, was the Empty. Infinite, and full, was the Empty.</p>
<p>It was almost like he was breathing water, or maybe he wasn’t breathing at all. His lungs struggled. He didn’t know if his eyes were open. The silence was so deafeningly loud that it made him want to cover his ears and fall to his knees. The only thing that Dean could feel, and the only thing he made himself believe was real and true, was the thick burn of Cas, Cas, Cas, rushing through his veins. </p>
<p>Dean knew, deep down, that he would never make it out of here. He knew that he had already marched himself to his death. He told himself that he’d made peace with that years ago, that he was ready to face whatever end he had to, and he would do it on his feet with his chest out and his back straight. Dean knew, deep down, that he was a liar.</p>
<p>And so, he moved forward. Whichever way that was. This plan was half-baked at best; a reckless stone throw into the Empty to find Cas, with no real solid plan to get back home. But that was okay, Dean was trying to convince himself, because if he found Cas (Fuck. When he found Cas), that would be home enough. </p>
<p>If Dean could smile in the face of his death with all the grace of an angel who has finally found joy. Found home. That would be, had to be, enough.</p>
<p>But Dean was not an angel, nor was he graceful. He was ashamed, and broken, and lost, and. . . scared. But most of all, Dean Winchester was a desperate man, and he was stubborn. And if he left here at all, it would be with Cas by his side.</p>
<p>Occasionally the void would shift, closing and opening, stretching like a colossal throat that was trying to swallow him down. Dean’s feet still fell on the unseeable floor with inaudible footsteps, and he marched onward in the unfathomable Empty.</p>
<p>Throughout the years, Dean had gradually found more comfort in prayer. And so, he prayed. He prayed to the angel who gripped him tight and raised him from perdition, he prayed to the angel who turned his back on his siblings and his father, to the angel who stood by his side through apocalypse after apocalypse after apocalypse. Dean prayed to the man who stood in front of him when there was no escape, and painted him in the light of heaven and earth. Dean prayed to the man who loved him, because, ultimately, Dean was praying to the man he loved too.</p>
<p>There was a tug in his mind. A sharp and painful barb of hope. And Dean, reckless, ran towards it. He felt himself calling out for Cas, but the gaping vacuum that the Empty was sucked the sound from his chest and forced him to run in that awful, ever-more familiar, silence. Every soundless step echoed through his body. Cas, Cas, Cas, and a shuddering breath, and his hands on his knees, and the tears on his face, rolling like his stomach. And his left shoulder, burning like it hadn’t since they’d first laid eyes on each other. Since that day in the barn.</p>
<p>Dean squeezed his eyes shut. A useless gesture in the lightless Empty. Please, Cas. The void shifted again, lifting and changing under his feet with a nauseating lurch. Please.</p>
<p>That pull came again, this time in another direction, and Dean chased after it. It felt like Purgatory all over again. The praying, the fear. The raw and unbridled instinct, and the desperate and absolute need to find Cas and bring him home. The ground beneath him pitched sideways and sent Dean sprawling. He couldn’t be sure if he was knocked unconscious, but when he opened his eyes, he could see his hands in front of his face. </p>
<p>Dean almost wasn’t surprised when he saw him. He was strung up like a puppet, like there were strings pulling up his elbows, his shoulders, and the back of his neck. A wrecked sob shook itself from Dean’s throat, the first sound he’d heard since entering the Empty, and he almost tripped over his feet in his rush to reach Cas. He didn’t know why, but he hesitated before grabbing Cas’ wrist, “Cas,” he whispered. He stared into the angel’s face, and watched his eyebrows furrow slightly. “Cas!” Dean said, much louder this time.</p>
<p>Castiel’s eyes flew open, luminous blue-white. Divine. He fell from whatever had been keeping him suspended in the air and landed awkwardly at Dean’s feet. Dean dropped to his knees next to him and grabbed him tight, he held the angel’s head firmly against his chest and buried his face into his dark hair. “Dean...?” Cas breathed, disbelieving, before disentangling himself to look at him in the face. Ocean blue met forest green, and then everything vanished in a torturous flash of white.</p>
<p>*****</p>
<p>When Dean came to, he was sprawled on the floor of the bunker’s kitchen. And so was Cas. Dean couldn’t think of a time in his life when he’d moved faster than right then, to Cas. He shook the angel’s shoulder. His left side. His palm tingled where it made contact. Cas’s eyes opened, and he frowned as he sat up, “Dean?” he said, and then, “I have to—” but what ever it was that Cas had to do was cut off. </p>
<p>Dean - Reckless, broken, lost, scared, Dean – grabbed him by the filthy lapels of that old tan trench coat and kissed him so hard on the mouth that it hurt. Properly hurt. It was open-mouthed and clumsy, and there was probably too much teeth, but Dean was way too relieved to have Cas back, to have Cas under his hands, to care. Cas’ hands were deep in Dean’s hair and he grabbed tight. As afraid and hungry as Dean was.</p>
<p>When they broke apart, they were both gasping. The bunker air was dusty, and those ancient lights were gold and dim. Cas wiped a thumb over Dean’s cheek, smearing a tear. Their foreheads pressed against each other. Firm and real. And there was silence, but it wasn’t the angry, oppressive silence of the Empty. It was warm, and it was comforting, and it was broken by the sound of his and Cas’ breathing.</p>
<p>*****</p>
<p>They went to bed, exhausted, and Cas fell immediately asleep, his head resting on Dean’s shoulder. Dean thought about all of the things he’d missed. The little signs that both of them showed throughout the years, and the things that the people who spent time with them noticed.</p>
<p>Right at the beginning, when Uriel told Dean that he was Cas’ weakness. That Cas liked him. All the staring and the standing too close that Dean had chalked up to him being an angel. Fundamentally an alien. Balthazar telling him directly that Cas was in love with him. Cas repeatedly choosing him over his brothers and sisters, and God, and his duty. Cas breaking out of Naomi’s brainwashing, Meg calling him Dean’s boyfriend, the way even Cas declared that they shared a profound bond.</p>
<p>But Dean realised that he’d loved Cas for years too. Oblivious at the time, of course, but the absolute faith that he had in the angel surpassed that which he had for Sam sometimes. Simply because it’s Cas. He remembered the bone-deep betrayal he felt when Cas left him for Crowley, and then the similarly consuming relief when he found him in Purgatory. The despair of leaving him behind, and the way the world got brighter when he came back on his own. Every time Cas was lost to him, it was as if somebody had taken a leg and a lung from him, and left him stumbling and gasping for a breath that would never fully settle in his chest.</p>
<p>All the little things, insignificant at the time, came rushing back. It was shoved so far into his face when he and Sam hunted Calliope at that all girls school, and he still couldn’t see it then. It made him want to laugh and cry and—</p>
<p>Cas was watching him. “Dean, why are you still awake?” Shit, Dean had missed Cas’ rough voice. Like molasses over gravel. Coarse and sweet.</p>
<p>“Just thinking,” he replied, shifting so that he could see Cas’ face. “I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>Cas’ face morphed into that famous frown, “Why?” Dean leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on his lips.</p>
<p>“I never got to say it back,” Dean breathed, “I love you, too, Cas.” Cas craned his neck up to kiss Dean back, and he could feel his smile. Dean smiled back.</p>
<p>*****</p>
<p>They were up early the next morning. They sat side by side in the kitchen, dean’s right hand nursing a coffee, and his left tangled in Cas’, resting on the table. </p>
<p>Sam froze in the doorway, staring wide-eyed at Cas, and then at Dean, “How—” he cut himself off as he caught sight of their intertwined fingers. His eyebrows rose impossibly higher, and he broke into a grin. Obviously, an explanation could wait. He squeezed Cas’ shoulder in greeting on the way over to the coffee plunger. Glad to have him back. As he left the kitchen, he looked back over at them, “Just so you guys know, so many people owe me money,” and then he was gone.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading :) I hope you liked it ahah</p></blockquote></div></div>
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